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Making news: Foo Fighters return with Taylor's son but time's up for 'cosmetic surgeons'

All the news that's fit to mint.

Jenna ClarkeEditorial Director
8 min read
2:18PMSeptember 04, 2022.
Updated 2:50PMSeptember 05, 2022
The Oz
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All the news that's fit to mint.

What's happening in (The) Oz today :

🤖 Forget AI, we're already a generation of dumb robots

📈 The Prime Minister is still in his polo shirt-wearing Cady Heron phase

👿 TikTok is being sent to the Principal's Office

👄 New laws to deflate the cosmetic industry

🕵🏻‍♀️ The age of Maxwell Smart may never be over

🥁 The Foo Fighters returned with Taylor's DNA

🤦🏻‍♂️ Trent from Punchy and Corey Worthington had a baby

🇦🇺 Serena's loss made us laugh and cry

💦 Nick Kyrgios' saliva cost him $11k

🏉 The AFL final series is trying to kill us

Good morning!

Especially to this 18-year-old lad from the Gold Coast who, after being charged with robbing a store with a machete, rolled up to the waiting media like Conor McGregor.

He will face court at a later date. No word yet if he was also issued an infringement from the fashion police.

Cy-bored

While the throwback #TeenageDirtbag trend is taking off on social, Australian teenagers today are getting dumber.

Apparently it's to do with our "shallow school curriculum" that is now for producing "second-class robots", as damning new data reveals a million teenagers are on a track to illiteracy over the next five years.

This is all according to a global education leader as reported in The Australian at the weekend.

Andreas Schleicher, education and skills ­director with the OECD - the ­Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development - has warned that Australia has "made learning often a mile wide, but just an inch deep".

"I would say that is one of the real challenges in Australia," he will say during a speech at the National Catholic Education Conference this week.

Schleicher oversees the world’s biggest comparative school test, the OECD’s Program for International Student Assessment (PISA), which has revealed a startling slide in achievement among Australian 15-year-olds compared to students from 75 other industrialised countries over the past decade.

Since 2003, Australian kids have dropped in subjects like:

Maths - from 11th place to 29th

Science - from 4th to 15th

Literacy - from 4th to 16th

(News)Poll position

The Prime Minister is still popular according to the latest Newspoll conducted for and published by The Australian -  the Rainbow Paddle Pop to our Zooper Dooper.

Anthony Albanese has extended his lead over Opposition Leader Peter Dutton as preferred PM while support for the coalition (the Libs and Nats) has slumped for the second time since the May election. It dipped to 31%, almost five points below the election. The last time it was this low was back in 2008 after Kevin Rudd won.

The Australian's political editor Simon Benson broke it down for us:

"Underlying support for Labor remains unchanged at 37% but, with the fall in support for the Liberal/Nationals, Labor has widened its two party preferred lead by two points to 57/43. This represents an almost 10-point gain for Labor since the election, as it continues to stamp its authority over the Liberal/Nationals parties," he said.

Newspoll also showed an uptick in support for the Greens and Pauline Hanson's One Nation.

Tick tock, TikTok

The government is set to review TikTok here in Australia.

Late Sunday it was announced the Department of Home Affairs will investigate data harvesting by the social media giant, amid growing privacy concerns over the Chinese-owned app. 

Home Affairs Minister Clare O'Neil revealed the department will return a "briefing" before next year on a range of options to manage data collection by social media companies. 

The review will include input from the Australian Cyber Security Centre, and will look at TikTok, WeChat and other social media companies. 

"We’ve got this basic problem here where we’ve got technology companies that are based in countries with a more authoritarian approach to the private sector, and this is a relatively new problem,” O’Neil said.

“The fact that we’ve got millions of Australians accessing an app where the usage of their data is questionable is very much a modern security challenge for the country and no country in the world has found the easy solution for managing this.”

TikTok has one billion users worldwide, including 7 million in Australia. Its Chinese-owned parent company, ByteDance, has come under fire in recent years for a lax approach to privacy, though TikTok insists user data is not sent back to China. 

Relax though, as the government, at least according to O'Neil, is not considering banning the app.

HOWEVER READ MORE ABOUT A POTENTIAL AUSSIE TIKTOK BAN HERE.

Cosmetic cowboys to be run out of town

Here are two pieces of information that are scarier than doing IPL without the numbing cream.

  1. In Australia, cosmetic surgery it not registered as a medical speciality because it has no therapeutic purpose. Which means any type of doctor can call themselves a "cosmetic surgeon".
  2. There is no recognised qualification for cosmetic surgeons or minimum standards for education and training.

"Big yikes," the federal Health Minister Mark Butler and his state and territory cohorts might have said when they met late last week.

Now doctors with no surgical training will be restricted from using the title cosmetic surgeon and they will no longer be able to advertise their services using patient testimonials like we used to see on social media.

In a bid to crack down on "cowboy operators" there will also be stricter regulation of the facilities at which cosmetic surgery can be performed.

The ministers unanimously agreed to pursue legal changes via legislation that would specify that anyone practising cosmetic surgery must have accredited surgical training.

Changes to the National Law that governs health regulation is necessary to restrict the use of the title “surgeon” to only those who have completed ­accredited surgical training. 

Docs have been lobbying for changes which will see cosmetic surgeons required to have undertaken six years of Australian Medical Council-accredited surgical training, which is currently provided by the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons.

Doctors with no surgical training are currently performing hectic and complex surgeries including breast aug­mentation, bottom lifts, and tummy tucks.

All the health ministers met on Friday to plan the changes amid a string of complaints and a class action underway against a high-profile "surgeon".

Inspect this

You'd like to think spies know a lot right? Turns out they're not really across the "equality" brief.

Speaking at the Lowy Institute last week, our top cyber spy Rachel Noble said there has been a "concrete block" not a glass ceiling that stopping women advancing in the world of foreign intelligence cybersecurity during the past 75 years. 

"Today it is coated in advanced cloaking technology and I couldn’t see it until I got senior enough to reach out and touch it," she said. 

Noble, the Australian Signals Directorate director-general, quoted Madonna, that she experienced “micro-humiliations” over the course of her ­career.

Rachel Noble (left) and Head of the Australian Cyber Security Centre Abigail Bradshaw for Vogue Australia.
Rachel Noble (left) and Head of the Australian Cyber Security Centre Abigail Bradshaw for Vogue Australia.

Some by women.

Noble recounted a time when she was asked by a young woman to fetch a senior male a cup of coffee during her tenure as ­leader of the agency.

“I told her no because I was an agency head,” she said.

“Because I wanted her to know that a woman could get into that room, not to be the note taker or the coffee bringer, but to sit at the table in her own right.”

Noble said she became a feminist later in her career after becoming aware of the barriers women still faced when she had risen high enough to touch them.

Farewell Taylor Hawkins

But introducing his son, Shane.

The 16-year-old, proving the apple didn't fall far from the tree, joined the Foo Fighters at the first concert since drummer Taylor Hawkins died in March.

Shane joined them for My Hero.

And throughout the song Dave and boys kept checking in on him with gorgeous nervous dad energy.

He smashed it right out of Wembley Stadium with an incredible set.

Grohl got choked up singing Times Like These and had to pause after the verse: "It's times like these you learn to love again."

Earlier, he described Hawkins as his "dear friend, bandmate and brother".

He said of Hawkins "no-one else could make you smile or laugh or dance or sing like he could".

"And for those of you that admired him from afar, I'm sure you've all felt the same thing. So sing and dance and laugh and cry and scream and make some noise so he can hear us right now."

The fairytale has paused

An Australian looks to have ended Serena Williams' tennis career.

Ajla Tomljanovic defeated the GOAT in three sets at the US Open in New York at the weekend.

"It’s been the most incredible ride and journey I’ve ever been on in my life,” Williams, wiping tears, said on court after the match.

Tomljanovic was praised for her on-court performance and grace after the game. 

She confided in her dad prior to the match how nervous she was taking on her childhood idol, and the 24,000 fans all rooting for Williams.

"I told her, ‘You have to be Kevin Costner today'," Ratko Tomljanovic told The New York Times. "In the film, he told her, the pitcher focuses explicitly on the catcher’s glove and ignores everything else in the stadium. Ajla understood, and she followed the advice with her own unique resolve."

Meanwhile, Margaret Court off-court drama has kicked off again.

With Williams "transitioning " away from tennis now means Court's 24 Grand Slam record still stands.

Court, speaking to London's The Telegraph, said she was disappointed that Williams has not admired her achievements, including that she had successfully returned to tennis to win a grand slam title, after having babies.

Court, who dominated the game through the 1960s and 1970s countered "Williams is the GOAT " claims with: "Serena, I’ve admired her as a player, but I don’t think she has ever admired me."

“Serena has played seven years more than I did. I finished in my early 30s. People forget that I took two years out. I first retired, like Ash Barty, when I was 25, thinking I would never return to tennis. I got married, had a baby, but then had one of my best years, winning 24 out of 25 tournaments," Court said.

Nick spits the dummy (again)

Nick Kyrgios is about as dramatic and unpredictable as Sydney's weather and it has been quite a weekend for the tennis star.

His US Open journey should inspire the new ride at Dreamworld given the ups, downs and twists.

After being fined $11,000 for spitting, swearing and "unsportsmanlike conduct", then telling his box, which included his girlfriend Costeen Hatzi,"Go home if you’re not going to f..king support me", he made it through to the third and then fourth round.

@eurosport

Things got a bit ugly in the Kyrgios camp 😬 #kyrgios #usopen #tennis #nickkyrgios

♬ original sound - Eurosport

Meanwhile he's also having a cracking tournament in the doubles competition where the Special Ks - Thanasi Kokkinakis and Kyrgios - made it through to the third round.

The AFL finals are pure chaos

It's never been a more stressful time to be an AFL fan.

Fremantle somehow came back from a first half onslaught against the Western Bulldogs to win and book a preliminary final against Collingwood this weekend.

The Pies lost a thriller against Geelong. Then got admonished by their coach Craig McRae after the siren.

Several shattered Pies stars slumped to the MCG after the game, prompting McRae to label his side as "losers" in a stinging assessment.

"We want to act like winners. The siren goes and there's half a dozen guys laying on the ground," McRae said in his post-match press conference.

"For me that's not a winner. That's acting like a loser.

"We're here to win this thing, we've given it everything we've got to get to this time of the year and you want to give it your best shot.

"We lost the game, but we're not losers. There is a difference."

Taylor Adams, a star for the Pies, also appeared to have endured the most horrible injury - tearing his groin from the bone (apparently it is a thing).

A fan then did this.

In other news, the Melbourne Demons lost to the Sydney Swans and the Brisbane Lions thumped Richmond.

Game on also the AFLW.

And that is the type of energy we're taking into this new week.

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Original URL: https://www.theaustralian.com.au/the-oz/news/making-news-foo-fighters-return-with-taylors-son-but-times-up-for-cosmetic-surgeons/news-story/14b13c3b8f56dc1ce1b36c575df37bfb